The Assassin's Creed franchise has always primarily been about exploring historically accurate locations across centuries of human history, all while skulking in the shadows (or bushes) as a deadly member of the Assassin's Brotherhood. Players explore world history while eliminating dangerous targets and leaping across rooftops with adept parkour abilities.
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However, tying all these games together is a fascinating sci-fi meta-narrative set in the modern day. These stories rarely get the same attention as the historical aspects of the series, and sometimes they get no attention at all. However, over the last 18 years of Assassin's Creed games, these modern-day stories have managed to capture the imaginations of players who are eager to see more of the assassins who live in the present and influence events in the world of Abstergo and the Animus.
Spoilers Ahead for the Assassin's Creed series, both the modern-day and historical stories.
Assassin's Creed
The Introduction Of Desmond Miles
Assassin's Creed
- Released
- November 14, 2007
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood, Strong Language, Violence
- Genre(s)
- Open-World, Stealth, Action
There are no modern-day segments in this franchise without the very first Assassin's Creed, which introduced Desmond Miles as the series' first true protagonist. Desmond, a bartender, is kidnapped by Abstergo Industries and forced to enter the genetic memories of his ancestor, Altair, through the Animus, to track down a mystical item called the Apple of Eden.
The most effective part of this modern-day segment was that Ubisoft kept the entire thing under wraps. As the first Assassin's Creed game, the series' strange pseudo-sci-fi subplot wasn't advertised at all, and it never leaked before release either. Instead, players who were expecting a historical open-world stealth-action game were instead greeted by a completely unexpected modern narrative that grabbed their attention from the outset.
Assassin's Creed 2
Desmond On The Run
Assassin's Creed 2
- Released
- November 7, 2009
WHERE TO PLAY
After Lucy busts Desmond out of his imprisonment in Abstergo, she takes him to a secluded hideout where an undercover segment of the Assassin's Brotherhood is working to outpace the Templars in their hunt for the Pieces of Eden. They plug Desmond into their own version of the Animus and send him back into the memories of Ezio Auditore da Firenze so that Desmond can speedrun the process of learning to be a fully-fledged assassin.
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The guerrilla nature of Assassin's Creed 2's modern-day story is a lot more enticing than the first game's more sterilized labratory setting, but what really puts it over the top is its ending. After discovering the Vault hidden beneath the Papal Palace, Ezio reveals a hologram of Minerva. Somehow, Minerva knows that both Ezio and Desmond are listening to her, and she tasks both of them with preventing an impending catastrophe. Back in the present, the assassins detect an impending solar flare, which they suspect to be the event Minerva warned them of. Desmond re-enters the Animus once again, leading to the events of...
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Desmond's Ancestry Revealed
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
- Released
- November 16, 2010
WHERE TO PLAY
After evading an attack by the Templars, Desmond and co relocate to a new hideout deep beneath the ruins of the Villa Auditore; fitting, considering Desmond is once again about to jump into the genetic memories of everyone's favorite Italian assassin, Ezio. He's once again looking for the Apple of Eden, believing that it will reveal a map that can point them to the other Pieces of Eden.
Not only does Ezio find the Apple, he uses it several times to look in on his allies and enemies alike, before hiding it in a temple beneath the Roman Colosseum. Desmond, Lucy, and the others travel to the temple and find the Apple, and Desmond is once again confronted by a hologram, this time of Juno. She is far more volatile than Minerva, and after revealing to Desmond that he is descended from the First Civilization (aka the Isu), Juno possesses him and makes him stab Lucy. Lucy falls to the ground, and Desmond collapses into a coma. Of all the finales in the series, the ending of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood was the biggest cliffhanger Ubisoft ever handed their players, and it made the entire fanbase rabid for the next entry.
Assassin's Creed: Revelations
Desmond Breaks Free
Assassin's Creed Revelations
- Released
- November 15, 2011
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood, Language, Mild Sexual Themes, Violence
- Genre(s)
- Action, Open-World
The modern-day parts of Assassin's Creed: Revelations aren't exactly set in the real world, but since they still focus heavily on Desmond, we'll give them their flowers. After the shocking conclusion of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Desmond has fallen into a coma. His body is taken back to his father, William, who, at the urging of some of Desmond's old allies, places his son back in the Animus.
There, Desmond encounters Clay Kaczmarek, the previous user of the Animus. Clay helps Desmond explore the Animus' Black Room and explains that, if Desmond lives out the rest of Ezio's life, he'll awaken from his coma. Towards the end of the game, Ezio unlocks Altair's library. He leaves the Apple there and then speaks directly to Desmond, apparently having identified Desmond's presence in his life. Ezio activates the Apple for Desmond, which relays one final message about how to stop the coming catastrophe. Then, Desmond wakes up and finally has a plan that he can put into action.
Assassin's Creed 3
Desmond Becomes An Assassin
Assassin's Creed III
- Released
- October 30, 2012
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language
- Genre(s)
- Action, Open-World
As far as Desmond's story goes, everything that happened in the modern-day segments of the first four Assassin's Creed games led up to the events of Assassin's Creed 3. Desmond is no longer an unwitting captive of Abstergo, nor is he learning to be an assassin from his ancestor Ezio. Desmond is now a card-carrying assassin himself, and finally, players got to experience that firsthand.
Desmond's story comes to a stellar conclusion in AC3, and while the game as a whole is a bit divisive, the modern-day aspects are the best the series has ever seen. From a leap of faith off a skyscraper to Desmond's return to Abstergo, everything that players wanted to see from a modern-day Assassin's Creed was present, and has yet to be topped in the 13 years since its release.
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Advent Of The Eagle Bearer
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
- Released
- October 15, 2018
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, Open-World
The "RPG Trilogy" of Assassin's Creed games is admittedly light on the modern-day side of things, although it still does more with the series' most underused concept than the stretch of AC games from Black Flag to Syndicate. Layla Hassan still doesn't have the same allure as Desmond's more coherent story, but she's a capable self-taught scientist and an interesting figure in the lore.
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What stands out most about Assassin's Creed Odyssey's modern storyline is that, for the first time, players witness the assassin they play as in the past carried over into the present. In this case, either Kassandra or Alexios (whoever the player chose at the game's outset) discovers that they are a direct descendant of the Isu, the ancient race who are responsible for creating the Pieces of Eden. As such, when Kassandra/Alexios discovers their true nature, they hide the Staff of Hermes (itself a Piece of Eden) and await Layla's arrival. Then, Kassandra/Alexios hands Layla the Staff in what is the series' first direct interaction between a modern-day protagonist and the assassin whose genetic memory they witnessed in the Animus.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla
Return To Form
Assassin's Creed Valhalla
- Released
- November 10, 2020
WHERE TO PLAY
Since Assassin's Creed 3, the narrative connections tying together the AC games have been tenuous at best, and non-existent at worst. That all changed in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, as the series finally provided a concrete throughline between Desmond's story in 2012 and Layla's adventure in 2020 that didn't just boil down to the presence of Desmond's father, William.
Layla's struggles with controlling the Staff of Hermes come to a head when she meets Basim in a simulation found inside a temple in Norway. Layla and her allies had detected a strengthening in the Earth's magnetic field, which was caused by Desmond's actions in 2012, and Basim tells Layla how to stop it. However, in doing so, she releases Basim from the simulation, trapping herself in his place. There she meets a being called the Reader, and just like Desmond did in 2012, she agrees to work with him, sacrificing her mortal self in the process. It's the kind of connected storytelling that series fans had been begging for ever since Desmond bowed out in Assassin's Creed 3, and they can only hope that the move away from the modern day in Assassin's Creed Shadows was a temporary departure and not the long-term plan going forward.
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